Saturday, February 27, 2010

from Jane Chesson @ the DCCA, please contact her directly jchesson@thedcca.org and/or let me know if you are interested in this opportunity:

Carlos Ferguson will be an Artist in Residence at the DCCA from 3/15/10 - 5/7/10. He will be partnering with 10 - 12 year olds at the Greater Newark Boys & Girls Club for the Residency. They will be creating a stop motion animated video using cut paper. This video will be screened on May 7th at our Art & Community Outdoor Video Screening and Picnic from 5 - 9pm on the Wilmington Riverfront/Justison Landing.

Carlos will also be speaking for our Art Salad Lecture Series on 4/14 from 12 - 1, this would be a really informative session for your students to hear about Carlos' personal artwork as well as previous community partnerships, all dealing with animation.

Carlos will also be serving as a Teaching Artist for our Free Family Program on 4/18 from 12 - 3pm. This will be a chance for community members to come and take part in a cut-paper animation project first hand.

We are looking for participants and volunteers to help with all of these events. If you would like any more information on them to bring to your students just let me know. If you have any other thoughts on how you would like your students to engage in this project please let me know. We are thrilled about the opportunity to have a closer relationship to the University of Delaware and its students.

Thanks so much, for more information on Carlos you can visit his site: www.carlosferguson.com/

I want to use a slow shutter speed on a moving figure to capture the motion blur in order to create an eerie trace of the figure. This site has a few videos showing breakdowns of movie clips that use this effect showing the individual frames at a much slower speed to show how the shutter speed affects the sense of motion of an object.

I really love the idea, specifically with claymation, of things that turn into something else constantly. As of right now I'm basing my project conceptually around the idea of just that - that you're eyes can and constantly do deceive you and that there is no absolute knowledge upon which to base anything. Of course that's a pretty big and serious question but I think it can be demonstrated with clay. It's been really helpful to find examples of claymation that explore the idea of letting the clay take on a mind of its own by seeing how it morphs almost accidentally from one thing to another. This video also uses changing camera angles to explore the many changing faces of the clay blob. Also it seems to be done by amateurs which is totally inspiring and makes me feel less intimidated by the whole thing!

I first saw this my senior year of high school and wondered how it was made, it is the best stop motion video ever times a million litrally. I am especially curious about the pool scene, and amazed by the "flying" legs bent in the air jumping scenes, it must have been incredibly difficult to make:

I'm using the glass approach for this first project (4 panes of glass), and I just did a test run of how to make some fog appear. So, with some help from Abby,I put the top pane of glass in the freezer, which created the fog appearance, but you need to blow on it to make it really show up. My next approach is going to be using a hair dryer on it once it comes out of the freezer to make it appear a little more quickly and easily. Just a little trick I thought I'd share because I probably wouldn't have thought of it had Abby not have suggested it.

By googling I also realized that the California Raisins commercials of the past were all claymation. I always liked those guys, so here's a link to one of their commercials just for fun.

A Proposition by Ute Meta Bauer: Light Years and Multiverses
Ute Meta Bauer will screen and comment on collective projects by artist Otto Piene and collaborators, including one of the first broadcasted television programs created by experimental visual artists, "Black Gate Cologne" ( 1968). Piene produced "Black Gate Cologne" along with intermedia artist and filmmaker Aldo Tambellini.

Propositions is a public forum that explores ideas in development. Each two-day seminar explores a topic of current investigation in an invited speaker's own artistic or intellectual practice. Over the course of a seminar session, these developing ideas are presented to the public, responded to, "researched," and discussed to uniquely propel the ideas forward

Free for Members, $6 Students/Seniors, $8 General Public
Click here to become a Member

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoBKfrtZUNs&NR=1&feature=fvwp(A video that has ab indoor setting. It's not quite what I want but it gave me some prop ideas.)

http://www.howcast.com/videos/165526-Video-Tips-and-Tricks-Ep10-How-To-Build-a-Miniature-Set-For-Chromakey(This was a video how-to which also helped me a little. This guy is all about sharing ideas too, so that's pretty cool.)

Although it isn't a claymation, I feel that this animation makes good use of stop motion to convey movement and has an interesting way of doing so. I think it would be interesting to try to combine this type of 2D animation with claymation, although obviously very difficult. Also, the concept of the runner leaving a series of after images behind as he moves would be cool to see in three dimensions, although it would then obviously become a stylistic choice rather than a convenient way to animate.

Here is my armature so far. His name is Herman. He made from wire and clay and I sewed the clothing from scraps. The entire process took a while to make but I had fun experimenting with the final product. I'm in the process of making the background and will add those as soon as I'm done!

Monday, February 22, 2010

This claymation actually gave me a visceral reaction when I saw it out of the many claymations posted on Youtube. Even though they are just clay people, the effect of blood rushing out of the bodies is astounding. My goal is to find ways to make my animations this fluid. Once again, the facial expressions are a big part of the piece as well as the noises made when people react to something. I am figuring out ways to give my pieces life like this zombie-filled flick has inspired. The purple brain matter is definitely a plus. (Don't worry, blood doesn't get me this excited. I just appreciate good animation)

So I was looking at video's on Vimeo and I then I remembered something that I saw recently that was really well animated. This video I found was the making of the movie. It shows the process of how the sets were made and how the characters were made too. I thought I'd share it because the whole making of part blew my mind away.

This is absolutely not claymation, but it is an image based video, and it always amazes me. I think it could definitely inspire some out of the box ideas for this class. I'm thinking growing plants, melting candle, rotting fruit, decaying roadkill........... (you know I love that smelly aesthetic!) But think process based... this is the direction I'm taking. I know in my last post I was contemplating the sand art, and trust me, that idea is possible for one of my future works. However, for my first 30 second masterpiece (I am oh-so-kidding), I'm going to be working with styrofoam and acetone. The reaction is fantastic and so cool, the chemical eats away at this material like a disease, which I suppose is why it appeals to me so much!

Well, please watch this video it is definitely worth it. Check out this guy's other work too, he's pretty cool, just click on the finished works link at the top left corner. I don't remember how I came across him, but he seems awesome. He's got a matchbook ASL alphabet... and a middle finger. In fact, here's the link to that because it's pretty cool too.

Soooo....This is my robot so far. (He is only on a plate so he doesn't get stuck on the table....not to eat.) I think he still needs a little bit of tweaking but I am trying to make him look as "hand drawn" as possible. I didnt realize how much class this little guy would take. It doesn't look like a lot but it truly was. Now to make the others and the background!

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Okay so this isn't a "how to" post but I saw this in my gem and bead catalog and thought people might like this. It is clay that comes in all different colors similar to Sculpey but they even have metallics. The other perk is that you can buy wholesale with assortability so you can buy 3 of one, 2 another and 10 of something else and get almost a dollar discount per package of clay and shipping rates are reasonable.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Aesthetics are not dead. Ideas may be to the lowest extreme rudimentary, but application and function should be precise in order to present even the more common of ideas with love and attention. Thought can be explored through any man with any means, but to create true art is to present thought appropriately and with dignity.

I found footage from a video game called The Neverhood which uses claymation. I thought this was interesting because it's the only time I've seen this style used in anything interactive. This shows that there is a great variety of things that can be done with claymation provided you have time and patience.

This is a cool site to check out if you want to create animated people. If you look around the site, you'll find some animated examples of facial expressions, and the best way to make your figures walk, and even kick a ball. They also have some examples of the best way to set up lighting, something that I definitely found helpful. The site is not the best quality, but if you just read through it a little bit it is helpful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFItPvekQaU

This video was also really cool. I was wondering how it would be possible to make a claymation that includes water, and this one kind of explains a little bit. Not so high-tech, but really cool. Definitely gets the ideas flowing.

I love this music video. I find it so amazing how the artist creates a sense of the woman actually jumping or running etc. just by using pillows, sheets and clothing to imitate different objects. My favorite part is the train scene where the artist uses patterned sheets to create the illusion of the woman riding the subway.

http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/old/lipSync.htmI was always curious as to how animators sync prerecorded dialogue with the mouths and expressions of the clay figures. This tutorial covers mouth shapes-to-sounds synchronization and offers tips for creating realistic animated speech.

Monday, February 15, 2010

OK so I really like how this is constantly evolving and it seems simple because only one type/color of clay is used but I am not sure how I would make something like that.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHA9thmrI20

So, I just so happened to be snooping around on youtube when I came across this specific video. It is probably one of the most interesting stop motions I've seen so far. I think what really stood out to me, other than the fact that Ironman is in it, is how smooth the video is. The way each figure moves very smoothly and makes the final product look very cool. Probably my favorite part of the video is in the beginning when Iron Man is fly around and when Bruce Lee is thrown into the wall. I really want to learn how the animator was able to make his figure punch and kick like they did. I'm sure it took a lot of time and patience to make such a smooth and constant video. I'd recommend watching it just for the heck of it, its a lot of fun.

When I saw Frank Zappa's "Baby Snakes" on DVD I was blown away. The claymation is absolutely mind-blowing; it takes you, by simply using clay and a camera (film SLR at the time!) into a completely different universe. The animators (not always Zappa, he does more of the weird musical accompaniment) are obviously brilliant artistic madmen who would be totally weird in any other context. When you watch their animations, as in the sample video from Baby Snakes that I posted above, you actually feel as though you are in the mind of the artist. Thusly you may feel a little bit crazy... It's seriously nuts. The transitions are completely insane and unexpected, and yet totally inevitable and beautiful at the same time.The clay comes to life in a way that seems alien. You can actually see the brain of the artist working seamlessly with the clay, but there is an element of autonomy to it. That is to say, it could be that the clay is changing on it's own terms. It's hard to explain, and probably useless to try. I just suggest that you watch, watch, and watch again. I think you can actually stream the entirety of Baby Snakes on youtube now, which is awesome, but in case they take it down by the time you read this, it's available on DVD from Video Americain on Elkton Rd. and I highly highly highly recommend it. Great inspiration.

Go here....you will NOT be disappointed. I came across a music video with a Will Vinton claymation as the subject. I then was intrigued to learn more about this artist. If you watch it, you will be surprised how many characters, commercials, movies, and tv shows you will be familiar with that this studio has created. A little old school...totally 90's but still very cool.

I know that this site only covers some of the basics, but it was the kind of thing that I needed to read in order to better understand the art of claymation. I think this link has some good suggestions especially about how to make your figure walk and how to create a good storyboard. I hope you find this helpful!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

I came across this student resource page when I was looking for information about armatures. The links include information about armature construction and support. Also, there is a chart on clay which is really useful because it looks at the properties of clay in terms of which would be the most appropriate for your claymation project.

Here is a link to a featurette on the stop motion movie 'The Fantastic Mr. Fox'. When I saw the movie I was extremely impressed with the craftsmanship and detail oriented nature of the characters and the set. I think seeing this could be useful in terms of looking at armatures along with incorporating voices with characters. Enjoy!

This links to a bunch of test clips from James and the Giant Peach. The really interesting character to take a look at is Mrs. Spider... her leg movements are so expressive and precise, and I hate spiders but she was my favorite character in that movie. The other link I have to show is actually a youtube video I was forwarded from a friend. It's not clay... but definitely a direction I'm interested in pursuing. Sand painting................. I'm going to have to make a light table

This is a claymation about a boy stealing a batman doll that comes to life. When I watched it I wanted to figure out how they made the characters blink in a convincing manner. The eyes were probably glass, though I'm not entirely sure how they manipulated them. Most of my work deals with figures and how they move in their realm. Learning simple things like eye movement could help my work seem more real or even more unreal if I make it a surrealistic piece. The smallest details usually become the biggest ones.